Confrontation
by Inconspicuous Acuity
Summary: Oneshot. The Exile has summoned the remaining Jedi Masters to Dantooine and is about to go meet with them. However, before that, she finds Revan... in a way. And there is yet another lesson to be learned.


**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything Star Wars. Star Wars owns me.

**Author's Note:** This is just a one-shot and definitely not another post-KotOR fic, nor a romance between Revan and the Exile. The idea has been swimming around in my head for a while and this is what resulted. It's something different, though it does involve a male Rev and a female Exile. Hope you enjoy it. Oh, and it hasn't been beta-ed, so don't kill me if there are any typos, repetitions or inconsistencies. Stop at smacking me over the head. :P

* * *

**Confrontation**

_She was there, physically, in a more concrete way than the very planet of unknown origins that held her as she advanced, walking-floating-swimming-flying through the indescribable mass that could only be defined as a solid ocean of mist. In it, the shapes around her, the pretense of a landscape, were hazy forms, only half-complete, but not waiting to be finished, as if their creator had not only stopped midway through making them, but had also left, never to return._

_The parts could not be named or defined, the whole they formed was unitary, yet not integer; it was a world without contrasts, without extremes – no black, no white, only mild shades of inexpressive gray. And yet there _was_ expression, even in that; the expression of the absurd and insubstantial. It was a world ideal to indecision and timelessness, a mixture of thoughts and sensations that drifted away too quickly to be identified._

_The Exile could feel the Force as it touched those barely existent shapes and swirled around them in patterns that mirrored their insubstantiality, their general character. For indeed, that world, if it even was one, could stand as the symbol for anything else in the galaxy. In it, the general traits of everything had been reduced to their most common aspects and mixed together to form the universal paste._

_And there, she found him. Revan stood before her, the only concrete certainty in the midst of a billion unclear doubts, as he always had been. He was clad in black robes, though there was something in the way they swished about his form that spoke of a Jedi – albeit a weary one with a lot heaving upon his shoulders – and not a Lord of the Sith._

"_So you have found me," he greeted the Exile with a bland smile and a small friendly gesture to symbolize that she was welcome. The serenity that he emanated... the peace. They were nearly intoxicating._

_They contrasted with what she felt. "So I have," she answered coldly, the aversion in her words biting furiously at the benevolence in his own._

_As they stood there, in the middle of nowhere and yet one with the essence of the galaxy itself, two tall, proud, timeless figures, all that they had done seemed to be aligned behind them, like an endless train of deeds and thoughts, forming memories that had half-materialized on the spot. The spirits of the past had awoken and they stood in their shadows, looming behind each like a distant echo, at the edge of the Force itself._

_Revan's train was considerably longer than the Exile's and it drew so many others behind it, like a magnet of immense proportions luring out every metallic inch of the galaxy. It called a part of the Exile's own to it, then isolated itself and left the rest astray on the side of doubt and loneliness, to deal with the consequences. Revan's actions were his own, clearly tied to him like life to the air one breathed, and their grandeur rose high, spiraling around the proud tower of history._

_The Exile's, however, had been influenced, impacted irreversibly by those of her former commander; it appeared as if all she had done stood in the shadow of his greater accomplishments and that, no matter how much she did, he would always be seen as part of the cause and would always receive some of the results. His call to arms and the prompt answer she had given stood above all else, in the circle of immortality and remembrance, along with all the pain they had caused to the broken Jedi sent away from that which had been her entire life. Her inferiority haunted her like a specter badly in need to be put to rest, once and for all. And in front of her stood the impersonation of all those fears and doubts, the end of the ordeal only a few steps away._

"_I will destroy you, Revan," she spoke resolutely, gripping her lightsaber tightly with both hands and activating its vibrant blade of red. Its light shone in her own eyes and cascaded over her features, as she rose it into an expectant position, still reluctant to attack before he had acknowledged her hatred._

_He shook his head and rose his open palm, halting any attack she would have wished to launch with but, once again, the strength of his character; no use of the Force. "Do not do this," he called to her gently as he stepped closer, enveloped in an aura like those of the wisest Jedi Masters on the Council, only... greater, more imposing. "Do not give in to the dark side."_

_Did he think she was still the naive youth he had drawn to his side so many years ago? The idealist who had fallen for his lies about how the Mandalorians needed to be stopped, who had given up on her beliefs and defied the Council because she had trusted and admired him? She had dismissed the part of her that called them truths, surely he would see that._

"_You have swayed me once already, Revan, and it was in the wrong," she retorted, using what she had hidden for so long, from everyone, the blame she thought he bore for her fate, as her shield to block him off. "It will not happen again."_

_He could not be allowed to speak anymore, to pour poison in her already shaken mind, to make more of his fake promises, more of the decisions that were not his alone. He should have consulted the others; he should have consulted _her

_She gritted her teeth and deafened herself to his lying words, as she launched the first enraged attack at a seemingly unarmed Revan. How he managed to produce his own lightsaber in time, how he was able to raise its gleaming silver against her red, in defense, she could not understand. She had been so quick and he had waited so long, almost hoping she would reconsider her actions..._

"_Silver, Revan?" she snorted derisively, in the frozen second that hovered above the first clash and its tension. He offered a sensible smile and a nod, even as he forced her blade to a side and pulled his own free, then drifted past her; the both of them spun back into a face-to-face stance almost immediately. _

_A flurry of strong, vicious strikes were issued from her, mechanically, imbued with the waves of anger and hate that rolled off of her incessantly. She saw the puzzled question in Revan's eyes, as they met her own ravenous pair for the briefest of moments – where had all that come from? And yet, he parried her every blow fluidly, slipping backwards and then turning the fight around again with the grace of a feline that afforded to be lazy._

_The memories stormed about the two, forming an amalgam almost as perfect as that of the world they were in, trying desperately to show the tumultuous Exile how she and Revan were two parts of a whole that needed to be reunited, how together they could save the galaxy. How they should have never parted in the first place. But she would not listen; they were lying – he had made them lie, turned her own memories, her own essence and ideals against her._

_And then she lost control of her body, as the actions of another took over it; Revan was lost and instead... came a voice._

"Wake up," Mical pleaded, deeply concerned, as he took the Exile's hands and tugged gently, with that ideal compromise between consideration and insistent resolve of the one that cares.

She opened her eyes to the worried expression covering his youthful features and, through the Force subconsciously channeled between them, she saw herself as he perceived her there, then – deathly pale and afraid, with tiny sweat drops peppering her forehead even as a great number of others rolled along her cheeks. She was vaguely aware of the wisps of hair sticking to the wet sides of her head, in a manner similar to that of her clothes as they hung to her skin.

"You were having a bad dream," the Disciple continued, beginning to calm down. He let go of her hands and seemingly tried not to think that he had been holding them in the first place, almost as if he were ashamed with how much of his concern he had openly displayed. "Are you all right?"

She couldn't hold back the small, reluctant smile, of the kind that emerges through a small breach in one's gloomy disposition, then soon fades away as the shadows return. She could relate to this one so easily, with every private thing he still had to guard, just like her.

"Yes..." she replied hesitantly, pulling herself up into a sitting position and brushing her forehead with the robe's large sleeve.

Looking around her, she could see Dantooine, Khoonda and the docked _Ebon Hawk_ well within view range, and the memories of how she had chosen to sleep under the open sky that night flooded back into her mind. This was the second time she visited here in only a very short period, after an absence that felt like an age. The Jedi Masters had gathered here and were undoubtedly expecting her to arrive soon, but a small disturbance had caused the Exile to postpone the meeting.

The Force had issued a very unusual call toward her as she had watched the raindrops pour from the sky that afternoon. Distantly, they had resembled the tears that she, a Jedi, was not allowed or able to shed, with the gray clouds bearing the mournful weight of all she had been through. She had felt connected to the planet, this conflux of all the important decisions in her life, a bond that Kreia had advised she should pursue and strip of whatever knowledge it could offer.

"Yes," she repeated, gazing deeply into the clear blue of Mical's eyes, now darkened by night. "Thank you."

The both of them stood up, she from the frame her body's weight had formed in the grass, and he from where he had knelt at her side. Looking at the sky, they each discovered questions to pose to the other, maybe inspired by the multitude of stars lazily winking in and out of existence; in moments such as those, it almost seemed like they had an eternity to share.

"What was it about?" the Disciple dared to inquire, as polite and careful not to pry as ever. His accent and the calm way he pronounced every word in full still gave her a warm feeling, similar to the first tinge of apparently unfounded familiarity she had experienced when they had first met."It seemed to impact you greatly," he noted, trying to offer a lucid, plausible reason to why he wanted to know.

"Revan," she replied, biting back a profuse sigh. "I dreamed that I had found him and he was..." Her mouth remained open, her lips strained expectantly, ready to form whatever sentence she wished, but she could think of no words to describe what she had seen. Or, at least, of no words that she wished to utter in the presence of others. "I had fallen," she switched tactics. "And he tried to bring me back, but I was beyond salvation. We fought."

"Revan," Mical echoed, probably thinking she hadn't noticed the small look he had given her from the corners of his eyes.

"And you?" the Exile prodded at his own motives for being there with barely concealed interest. "Why weren't you on the Hawk?"

"The old woman... Kreia," he explained, though it was obvious the question made him feel uncomfortable. "She expressed concern about certain things reaching her through your bond. I merely offered to check on you for her."

"I see," the woman chuckled, sincere in that doing for the first time in... she could not remember how long.

"Pardon the intrusion if my curiosity bothers you..." he began testily. "But I must ask... years ago, when you followed Revan to war, what were your motives? Were there... feelings involved?"

The Exile was no stranger to that question, not at all, for she had asked herself the same several times in the past, before she had been able to reach a final conclusion. She shook her head – no – as a chilly gust of wind swept past and sent a shiver down her spine, reminding her she needed to go change her clothes and dry her hair.

"But I believed in him," she clarified, still reluctant to head for the ship. "When he spoke, it was as if... my own heart spoke through him."

"It is no different from what I felt that day, when you taught us," Mical replied dreamily.

"That is the talent of a leader," a quiet, raspy and all too familiar voice belonging to an approaching third party ensued from behind them. "To influence others, not with the nature of what is said in itself, but with the passion entangled in their own ideals."

"Kreia," the Exile remarked, as she and the Disciple turned around to see her hooded form hover above the grass like a shade drifting toward them. None of the two had perceived anything to predict her arrival, not a sound and not a warning through the Force.

"You have found your needed answer here, I believe," the old woman continued, as she stopped close enough and placed the one hand she still possessed on the corresponding hip. As usual, the lack of something specific to focus on, present in every fiber of her being due to the lack of eye-sight, was quite disconcerting.

"If the answer you mention is that I am a leader also, then you had already told me," the Exile remarked, trading a short glance with Mical.

"Not that," Kreia reprimanded critically. "Probe into your past, for the last time of many, and banish all accusations from your heart. Revan did not _force_ you to hide behind his greater form. _You_ chose to contribute to that greatness, instead of forming your own sphere of influence."

"I..." the Exile seemed off focus for a moment, losing her train of thought. So much swerved inside of her that she could not understand where she had found enough room for it all for as long as she had. And yet, among all the other things, that realization was there, reached long ago but not yet acknowledged. "...have always known," she picked up after a pause longer than intended.

Perhaps, she realized as she guessed Kreia's approving nod from the swaying of her hood, the battle against everything she had left behind was coming to an end. Her beliefs were built on Revan, but such an important part of him was based on her own efforts, connected with those of others, that in the end Revan depended on her as much as she did on him. She had never known understanding was such a sweet sensation.

The breath that followed felt like the first in a long while; she found herself once again able to pay attention to the minor details, like the freshness of the air or the swaying of grass, able to perceive whatever she stepped on when she moved toward the Hawk. It was as if she had been dead for an eternity and was now given a second chance at life.

"You are ready now," Kreia declared, and her voice contained a touch of softness that had never been there before. "We should go to the Enclave."

Those words fell upon the Exile like rocks, as she anticipated the insistent stares of the Jedi Masters and the challenges they would pose to her newly-strengthened morale. Why? Why did everything sweet have to last so little?


End file.
